Not completely accurate, the resistance continued for two years after. How much more difficult would William's job have been had Harold not been killed?
You're making historical generalisations which simply aren't true. Armies didn't just simply break up, many could fight and flee and fight again. Such hit and run tactics characterised the fighting styles of many different groups especially when they were outmatched in numbers though the terrain was in their favour. It's simply untrue to claim that a loss in battle automatically lead to the destruction of the losing army.
Rebellion and wars are two completely different things. so he faced rebellions after winning the throne, what off it? or are you suggesting that revolts and rebellions dont currently happen in CK? cause if you are, go conquer england as harald or william, refuse to convert to anglo-saxon culture, and try going two generations without a peasant revolt, noble revolt or a liberation army. also, so what if harold had survived? my point was that wars could be won very quickly, as proven by the battle of hastings. your argument was that there was no medival wars for whole kingdoms that only lasted a few weeks, which i disproved by the norman invasion of england. wheter it could have gone differently is of little consequnce here, william won, and he did so in less than two months.
Yes they did, once medieval armies lost they almost always broke. what you and so many others who defend SR are doing is confusing levy based armies with those of proffessional standing armies. levies were farmers that by law were bound to answer their count/duke/king/emperor when said ruler called them for war. the entire point of the system was to create a system where the young male population could spend most of their time farming, but also be called together relatively quickly to create massive armies. thus the levy were the foot soliders of medieval armies, the bulk of their armies were levy soliders. but levy soliders arent proffessional soliders, they had only the bare minimum training with their weapons, they had absolutely no mental training to deal with the stress of combat, in case of christian soliders, most of them probably felt genuinly fear of being killed and going to hell for killing others. none of them wanted to be there, they wanted to be home with their wives and children, not on a battlefield fighting a fight they hadnt volluntered for, fighting an enemy they probably didnt know anything about, and fighting for a king/emperor they didnt know. thus when an army lost, they broke, men desserted in the night as the men that composed the bulk of the army basicly said "screw this im going home". true, there were men who stayed with the king, the actual proffessional soliders(be they kinghts, housekarls, hussars or others) but the main part of the army was gone. and once that army was gone, getting them back together again was something that took years. when the french lost the battle of agnicourt, they still had 20k men, outnumbering the english by over 2-1, but the army was gone, the levies broke, and desserted in mass. and it took generations for the french to recover from that fiasco and raise a new army to challenge the englsih. and yes, this generally also happened when the retreat was ordered. the levies needed a sense of victory if they were to stay an army, and if that was instead given a sense of complete loss, they broke.
mind you, there were some places where this didnt apply, the byzantine empire for example, never really became a feudal society in the same way their western neighboors did. they did have a proffessional standing army, and even their levy system(know as the Theme system) was far more advanced and generally produced much better soliders than any of their western or muslim counterparts. and then there was the steppe hordes like the mongols, who also had a proffessional army and didnt rely on a levy sytem at all. but most societies in the medival world, did rely on levy systems, the muslims did, the europeans did, north africa did. proffessional soliders as the standard didnt start becoming a thing again until King Karl the eight of sweden proved how much better such an army was compared to levies. and until then, a tactical retreat was something only done by mercenaries.
edit* here's a speech from george r r martins a song of ice and fire that gives a look into the mind of a levy
